Top Notebook Entries

Leaked State Department Cable Claims Juárez Business Leaders Hired Former Zetas for “Protection”

The drug war in Mexico has been depicted in the mainstream media, for the most part, as a conflict between brutal, rival “drug cartels” that are in a pitched battle over territory and for survival as the Mexican military seeks to restore order under the leadership of the brave and resolute President Felipe Calderón.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or the ATF, is in the hot seat now because of its alleged investigative practices that have allowed thousands of illegally purchased firearms to be smuggled into Mexico by warring narco-trafficking organizations.

Bolivian President Evo Morales earlier this week held up a book, titled “La Guerra Falsa,” for the world to see.

The tome Morales displayed for the cameras on March 3 at a military ceremony in La Paz, Bolivia is the Spanish-language version of “The Big White Lie,” a book penned by former DEA undercover agent Mike Levine. The book exposes the CIA's corrupt involvement in the drug war, including its role in the "cocaine coup" in Bolivia in 1980.

Suspects Now in Custody Smell Like Scapegoats, Law Enforcement Sources Contend

Earlier this week, the Mexican government detained and paraded before the media a group of individuals it claims are responsible for the Feb. 15 attack in Mexico on two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — one of whom was shot to death and the other wounded in the assault.

In the aftermath of the attack earlier this week on two U.S. federal agents in Mexico, the U.S. media has gone on a feeding frenzy reporting on the sensationalistic details of the assault while the subsequent investigation into that crime may already be unraveling absent scrutiny.

[SEE UPDATE BELOW: New sources now claim training mission was a "cover story"]

A group of armed Zetas, dressed in black, earlier today shot two U.S. federal agents on a Mexican highway after setting up a roadblock ambush, according to a law enforcement source with inside knowledge of the attack.

One of the agents is dead, the other is “clinging to life” in a hospital in Mexico City, the source says.

State Department Report Details Special Forces “Mobile Training Teams” South of the Border

To fight the drug war in Mexico the US military conducted specialized trainings both inside and outside of the country with a focus on combating “narco-terrorism” and “counterinsurgency” conflicts, according to a recently declassified report from the State Department and Department of Defense. The document (PDF), which details foreign military training in the 2009 fiscal year, sheds more light on to the kind of instruction Mexican soldiers were receiving from the United States as violence and deaths continued to increase in the country. This includes the deployment of “mobile training teams” that were used to teach special forces combat techniques.

The Big Clubs in Mexico’s Drug War Aren’t Slipping Through the Gun-Show Loophole

Another series of leaked State Department cables made public this week by WikiLeaks lend credence to investigative reports on gun trafficking and the drug war published by Narco News as far back as 2009.

Former DEA agent Celerino “Cele” Castillo III has filed a “section 2255” habeas corpus appeal in federal court in San Antonio, Texas, alleging that he is the victim of prosecutorial misconduct and asking that the judge set aside his sentence for dealing firearms without a license.

A 2009 State Department cable made public recently by the nonprofit WikiLeaks media organization appears to be an effort by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico to do some deceptive damage control on the drug-war front.

Memo Reveals “Rapid Response” Campaign Model To Back Lobo Government in Washington DC

More details have come to light relating to former Clinton White House official Lanny Davis' (pictured right) recent lobbying contract with the Honduras government. In a November letter (PDF) addressed to Honduras president Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo and the country's ambassador Jorge Ramón Hernández Alcerro, Davis writes that he'll focus on two objectives. One seeks to win more tax dollars from US coffers, and the other is a strategy to drown out accurate media reports that have been inconvenient for the government since a coup d'etat on June 28, 2009.

Davis suggests “continuous and repeated” meetings with members of the US Congress, the White House, and the Department of Commerce, with a specific focus on the State Department, currently headed by Yale Law School friend Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On the media front he proposes creating "a systematic informational program with major US media, Internet, and social network sites to get a more positive narrative about Honduras," including “a 'campaign' model: a rapid response capability to counter any distortions or inaccurate media reports or innuendo."

"So much of the difficulty in the post June 28, 2009 events was due to a failure of instantaneous factual communication to the administration as well as US (and global) media about what happened in Honduras," Davis contends in the letter, which was included in a federal document obtained by Narco News.

Before being hired by the Honduras government in December, Davis worked for the Business Council of Latin America after the coup to promote “facts” and policies in Washington DC that supported the ousting of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya, an act that was widely condemned by the international community and the Obama administration after it happened.